


No Thanks, I Don't Need Any Help

by wordsaplenty



Series: VLD Whump Week [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxious Keith (Voltron), Gen, Social Anxiety, keith/lance if you squint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 12:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11920794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsaplenty/pseuds/wordsaplenty
Summary: Going to the grocery can cause a lot of anxiety for someone who is sure they will say the wrong thing and make a fool of themselves.  This becomes especially more difficult when someone like Lance continues to try to force you into a conversation.Socially anxious Keith meeting and interacting with grocery store worker Lance.***Belated Entry to VLD Whump Week: Day 5 Insomnia and/or Mental Illness





	No Thanks, I Don't Need Any Help

The fridge was empty. Well, there were some tortillas, and mayonnaise, and a couple baby carrots but otherwise nothing.

Keith sighed. He’d have to go to the grocery. That would mean remembering to make and bring a list, remembering to bring bags for the food, and interacting with the cashier and possibly a bagger. What if employees asked if he needed help while he was looking?

“Ugh, this is stupid!” He groaned. He should be able to leave his house and interact with people. But for some reason it was hard. Really hard. Like, what if he said something stupid. Then the employee would think he was stupid. They’d probably go home to their significant other and say “hey guess what this stupid customer did today,” and then more people would know how stupid he was.

Maybe he could just order food online again, and pick it up from the handy dandy food pick up shelves that some places have. Close to zero chance of having to interact with an employee, though he may have to interact with other customers. 

His phone pinged. It was a text from Shiro.

To Keith:  
This is your bi-weekly reminder that you need to go to the grocery.

Maybe he could just ignore the text.

To Keith:  
I will be by tomorrow to check your fridge. You are making me a home cooked lunch. Your fridge better be full.

From Keith:  
What if you went with me? I pay, you talk to people.

To Keith:  
We’ve talked about this. How are you going to get over your anxiety if you keep letting it stop you from getting food?

From Keith:  
Fine.

Did he really have to go right that second though? Maybe he could wait and go early tomorrow morning. There’d be less people. It’s the afternoon right now meaning more customers, probably more employees, and more people for him to look like an idiot in front of.

To Keith:  
You better be out your door within the next five minutes.

“Dammit Shiro!” Keith could do this. Make a quick list, grab his bags, and prepare to be humiliated.

***  
Keith made it to the grocery store. He got his cart and he was making his way through the aisles. 

Keep your head down, don’t make eye contact, ignore other customers, walk the opposite direction of employees, no need to talk to anyone.

Within fifteen minutes his cart was filled with frozen dinners, fruit bowls, salad, chicken, muffins, milk, and French bread. 

He walked by the checkout lanes once, trying to get a gage on who was running each one. He was trying to figure out who would be more forgiving if he said something stupid.  
There was an older woman at one register. The other register had a young man behind it. Probably close to Keith’s age. Old lady it was. She might try to make more small talk than the young man would but hopefully she’d forget all about it by the time she got home.

Keith pushed his cart to the lane with the old woman. The person in front of him had a lot more stuff than he realized. Glancing nervously over at the other lane he noticed that they were moving a lot quicker.

“I can help the next guest over here.”

Crap. That was him. Reluctantly Keith pushed his cart to the lane with the young man. Don’t make eye contact, hopefully he’ll get the hint and not try to make any small talk.

He piled his stuff on the belt as quickly as possible. Once he was done he pushed his cart up and focused on pulling his wallet out and getting ready to pay. He looked up to check the price and his eyes caught the cashiers. The cashier who was giving him a very pointed look. Why was he doing that? Keith smiled nervously and looked off to the side, catching the name tag of the cashier, Lance.

“So is that what you always do when someone says hi to you? You just smile and look away.”

Keith could swear he felt his heart begin to race. What was the cashier talking about? He hadn’t heard him say hi. Had he said hi? Dammit, what was he supposed to do? He knew this had all been a mistake.

“No, no, sorry, hello,” Keith said, looking up at the cashier and giving an awkward wave.

“Are you shy or something?” Lance said, looking up after scanning the last few items.

Oh my god what was his problem? Couldn’t he see Keith didn’t want to talk?

“Um,” Keith let out an awkward laugh, “maybe a little, I don’t know.”

After that Keith pointedly kept his head up, looking toward the cashier, though still avoiding eye contact when possible. His heart was racing, he could feel it beating all the way down to his feet. Keith paid for his food and quickly left.

When he got home he put all his stuff away and replayed the conversation in his head. Who does that? Why would somebody choose to put him on the spot like that? This is exactly why he didn’t want to go to the grocery in the first place.

The next day Keith made him and Shiro some sandwiches for lunch, after Shiro had thoroughly inspected his fridge and seemed satisfied that Keith would make it another week.

“So, how’d it go?” Shiro asked. This was their system. Keith would go somewhere or do something that made him anxious and Shiro would ask for him to debrief. Then he’d try to convince Keith that things weren’t really as bad as they appeared in his head and that he was actually making progress with tackling his social anxiety. Well, until yesterday that is.

“So that jerk Lance made me feel like such an idiot. It’s not my fault I didn’t hear him, why’d he have to call me out like that? But now I’m sure he thinks I’m stupid and weird and stupid!”

“It’s really not that…”

“Don’t even start with me Shiro, it was bad. God, I awkwardly waved after I said hello. Who does that?” Keith dropped his head on the table. Then did it again, and again. Maybe if he did it enough he’d forget what had happened.

“Ok, so it was awkward and I’m sure that made you feel more anxious, but honestly Keith I doubt this guy will remember this.” Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder, trying to reassure him.

“Yeah, well I’m not giving him the chance to remember. Next time I go, I’m going super early in the morning. And I’m going to use the self-checkout. Then I won’t have to talk to anyone.” Keith lifted his head up and looked at Shiro defiantly. 

Shiro sighed and dropped his hand from Keith’s shoulder. 

“Look, Keith, maybe you should talk to someone about this.”

Keith did not want to talk about that. “That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“No, I mean,” Shiro ran a hand through his hair, pushing his bangs away from his forehead, “I mean maybe you should start talking to a professional about your anxiety.”

“Nope, nope,” Keith pushed his chair back and took his empty plate to the dishwasher.

“Keith,” Shiro followed him with his own plate, “look you can keep talking to me, that’s fine, but maybe think about talking to someone who actually helps people deal with their anxieties.” 

“It’s hard to talk to people, especially people I don’t know. Hell, I have a hard time talking to people I do know without freaking out when I say or do something wrong. But you think I should talk to someone who I know is actively trying to get inside my head? No thank you!” Keith walked over to his living room and flopped down on the couch. Shiro followed up and sat down next to him.

They sat in silence for a while. Shiro was the one to break the silence. “I don’t know what it’s like to be in your head, but it sounds hard. You know you can always come to me whenever you need anything, right?”

Keith leaned his head on Shiro’s shoulder. “I know.”

“Good, cause it goes both ways and I need you to learn how to cook cause buddy, I’m not eating anymore of your sandwiches.” 

***

It was time to get food again. Like Keith had told Shiro, he went early in the morning and used the self-checkout. He practiced in his head saying, “No thank you I don’t need any help,” just in case he was forced to talk with someone. When he got there though, the employee monitoring the self-checkout area was none other than Lance. 

Head down, no eye contact, just like Shiro said he probably doesn’t even remember what happened last time. Keith pushed his cart to the checkout and began scanning his items.

“Oh hey, it’s the dude with the mullet who doesn’t know how to say hi to people, you gonna say hi today or are you going to pretend I’m not standing here?”

“No thank you, I don’t need any help.” Wait, Keith cringed, that didn’t match what Lance had said at all. Keith wasn’t prepared for that. Why did this guy have to keep bothering him? This guy was intentionally being a jerk.

He chose to ignore Lance and just focus on checking out. Scanning his last item, Keith paid and placed his bags back in his cart and moved to walk past Lance but Lance wouldn’t let him. He had gotten extremely close and it was taking every ounce of control in Keith not to back up or possibly punch him. Just because people made him anxious didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to throw down when he needed to.

“Are you a selective mute? Is that why you won’t say more than two words to me?”

Keith looked incredulously at Lance. Who does this? Keith knew he didn’t have a lot of experience having conversations with people, but this was definitely not normal, right?

“No I’m not a selective mute,” Keith muttered through clenched teeth.

“Ah, so he does speak,” Lance backed away enough that Keith could push his cart by. Keith got out of there before Lance could say anything else.

***

Ok, so the afternoon and early morning are not good times to go to the grocery, what about mid-morning?

Lance was standing at the self-checkout, again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Keith said out loud then quickly shoved a hand over his mouth. His eyes widened as his breathing started to quicken. That was definitely not what he had practiced saying. Why did he say that? He looked like such an idiot.

Glancing over at Lance Keith watched him just flash a grin and then he pointed finger guns at him. What? Why? What was happening? Was he supposed to do finger guns back?  
Who does that? Is that a thing now? 

“Hello to you too! Welcome to my humble checkout line where you do all the work and I get all the money.”

***

“He’s always there. His hours are literally all over the place, no one has a work schedule like this, it’s insane.”

Keith stared at Shiro, waiting for him to agree, but instead found Shiro looking at the Mac n Cheese box he had set out for their lunch today.

“Well it’s his job. He’s supposed to be there at different times,” Shiro said calmly. “Also, this is not what I meant by a home cooked meal. We need to get you some cooking lessons.”

Keith went back to stirring the pasta, “Nope I’ve gotta figure out how to avoid this jerk Lance.”

“Do you think he thinks you’re an idiot?” Shiro asked, grabbing some bowls for them.

“Well yeah, each time he talks to me I’m barely able to mumble out a full sentence.” Keith drained the pasta and added the cheese, milk, and butter.

“Then why does he keep talking to you?” Shiro asked, leaning against the counter next to the stove.

Keith stirred and thought. And thought and stirred. Huh, Lance kept trying to talk to him, did that mean he actually wanted to talk to him?

“Look, it’s just a thought but, maybe try to make small talk with this Lance. It could be great practice. Or it could make him stop wanting to talk to you. Either way it works in your favor.”

Keith put the Mac n Cheese in the bowls which Shiro grabbed and put on the table for them.

Keith ate and thought. And thought and ate. “Ok,” he said eventually, “but, can we practice first?”

“Sure,” Shiro said with a fond smile.

*** 

Even though he had practiced with Shiro, Keith decided that today just wasn’t his day. Maybe another day but today the anxiety was just piling higher and higher and he was not going to add to that pile by attempting to talk to Lance. Therefore he ended up at the grocery store in the late evening.

The self-checkout line was ridiculously long, plus Keith’s cart was pretty full and people were going to think he was a terrible person if he went in that line so instead he went to the first open checkout line, which just happened to be Lance’s.

“Nope, nuh uh, why are you always here?” The words flew out of Keith’s mouth before he fully thought them through. He couldn’t help it. He really did not want to see him today.  
This was just too much.

“Dude I work here.” Lance replied as he began to ring up Keith’s food.

Keith huffed out a sigh, then thought back to conversations he’d had with Shiro about Lance. He took some deep, calming breathes and remembered that no matter what this would work out for him. Just like Shiro had said. Shiro had never steered him wrong before, even if he had forced him into anxiety inducing situations he always seemed to know what he was doing. He thought back to his last conversation with Shiro and decided to steal from that conversation. “Yeah but you’re hours are literally all over the place, no one has a work schedule like this, it’s insane.” 

“Yeah well I’m kinda the go to sub for people. If someone’s gonna be out they know to call old Lance here and I’ll cover them. Plus you know the whole point of having a job is to make money and you make money by being at work, at different times, throughout the day.”

“Makes sense I guess,” Keith mumbled as he paid and walked away.

***

From Keith:  
I did it! I talked to Lance!

To Keith:  
Great! How are you feeling?

From Keith:  
A bit nervous still…But I think I might try again. Like we practiced.

To Keith:  
Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

***

The next time Keith went to the grocery store he was ready. It was a good day. He felt ready to have this conversation. He had also practiced multiple different scenarios with Shiro. It would be fine. 

Keith looked over at the checkout lines, no Lance. Keith looked over at the self-checkout lines, no Lance. He wasn’t there today.

Nope, nope, he had not practiced for this. He hadn’t realized how comfortable he’d gotten having Lance as his cashier. The anxiety was building in his stomach. Now he’d have to interact with someone else. No, he could just go to the self-checkout.

It wasn’t fine, the machine was showing an error message. Keith needed help but didn’t want to talk to the employee monitoring the machines. The anxiety was moving up to his chest now. Maybe if he just waited he’d notice? He wasn’t noticing, and there were people waiting, and they’d all be mad at him. He made eye contact with the teenage girl who was watching the machines. He gave a little wave, why’d he do that? She rolled her eyes and looked away. Why wasn’t she coming over to help?

“Um… could I have some help?” Keith called out.

The girl looked his way. He pointed to the machine. She rolled her eyes again but came over to help anyway.

After she entered some code and pushed some buttons the machine was up and running again. Keith didn’t waste another moment. He scanned and bagged his items quickly and was out the door and heading to his car.

He was almost to his car when he looked up and saw Lance, strolling down the row he was in. The anxiety was all the way at his throat now and there was no time to stop it. 

Lance noticed him, gave a wave, and started to walk toward him. Keith felt a sob escape his throat before the anxiety bubbled over and his breathing quickened. There was no stopping it this time. His knees buckled and, next thing he knew, he was on the ground. Gasping for breath. His mind was a mess, snatches of anxiety filled thoughts fluttered through his mind, causing him to lose control of his breathing each time he thought he was starting to get a hold of it. 

Someone was touching his shoulder. No, don’t, that’ll make it worse. A voice started to filter through. Not Shiro, he was the only one who could help. Where was Shiro?

“Hey man…” No, wait, he knew that voice.

“If you can hear me nod your head.”

Keith gave a jerky nod of his head. There was no air. Just gasping and anxiety that was clogging his mouth, throat, stomach, even all the way down to his toes.

“Alright I want you to try and focus. Can you tell me some things you hear?”

This seemed familiar. This was something Shiro would do sometimes. Keith could do this!

“You…breathing,” Keith forced out.

“Good, that’s good! Now what do you feel?”

Keith panted for a moment. “Ground, p.p.parking l.l.ot, you.”

“Great, now I need you to open your eyes buddy.”

It took a minute, his breathing was slowing down but it was still too fast, but Keith managed to pry his eyes open and look up at Lance.

“Hey man, good job! Now what do you see?”

Keith focused on Lance’s face, it was all he could see. He seemed so calm and in control.

“You.”

“You’re doing great buddy. I want you to really watch me, breathe with me okay? You’ve been doing great but you’re still breathing a bit fast.”

Keith nodded his head then focus on Lance who was taking really slow deep breathes in and out. Keith tried. He couldn’t do it. He let out a sob.

“Hey, no man, you’re doing great, keep trying, in…and out.”

Keith had no idea how long they sat like that in the parking lot. With Lance crouched in front of him, showing him how to breathe normally. Eventually Keith was able to breath on  
his own and the anxiety had gone back down to a corner of his stomach.

Keith stood up with Lance’s help and leaned against his car.

“I gotta say I was not expecting that when I came to work tonight,” Lance said, leaning against Keith’s cart, “Do you know what happened to you?”

“Yes,” Keith grumbled. Could this get any more embarrassing?

“Hey, no judgement here dude. My little sister gets panic attacks all the time. Sometimes they just pop outta nowhere, sometimes things just pile on top of each other. I help her out when I can.”

Huh, that explained a lot actually.

“Do you wanna talk about it,” Lance asked.

“I’m Keith,” Keith blurted out. This was not how he’d practiced the conversation with Shiro but he might as well give it a try now. Not like it could get much more embarrassing than having a panic attack right in front of him.

Lance’s eyes seemed to soften. “Hello Keith, I’m Lance. Nice to meet you!”

Keith turned to his car, popped the trunk, and started to put his groceries in. “Thanks for your help,” he said with his back to Lance. It was a bit easier to talk to a trunk, you didn’t have to see facial expressions that way. “I got a little overwhelmed. Nothing went the way I’d planned today and I had to talk to people I wasn’t expecting to talk to. It just, all piled up and threw me off.”

Putting the last bag in the trunk Keith turned back to look at Lance.

“It happens man. If you ever want someone to talk to you can always come to old Lancey Lance.”

“Thanks.” Keith went to grab his cart to put it away but Lance grabbed it first.

“I got this, have a nice night Keith! I’ll talk to you later.”

And with that Lance was walking away and Keith was left in the parking lot next to his car. 

***Months Later***

“Hey Lance,” Keith called out while pushing his cart to Lance’s lane.

“Yo Keith, what’s up?” 

“Not much, except Shiro’s on my case about going out and meeting people and whatever,” Keith said, finishing placing his food on the belt.

“Hmm, that’s tough buddy, is he willing to go with you at least?” Lance asked, ringing up Keith’s food.

“No, that’s the problem! He’s too busy with his new job. That’s why he wants me to meet other people, since he’s been too busy to hang out lately. He doesn’t want me to turn  
into a total shut in. His words, not mine.”

“Well what do you wanna do?” Lance asked, placing a bag in Keith’s cart.

“I don’t know. He has a point, I can’t keep hiding in my apartment, but I’m terrible at conversations. I try to practice what I’ll say in my head so I don’t sound like an idiot but still I never know what to say. There are like, three topics I’m knowledgeable on and they’re not things I can really slip into conversations easily. And when I do talk, I say the wrong thing and people think I’m an idiot.”

Lance rang up a few more items before saying, “Ok, so there’s a lot wrong with what you just said. Buddy, we just had a pretty good conversation and I can tell you I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

Keith rolled his eyes, “That’s because I know you, you’re easy to talk to. Other people aren’t.”

“What if we hang out?” Lance leaned over to place the final bag in Keith’s cart. “Shiro would be happy cause you’re hanging out with someone that’s not him and you just said  
yourself that I’m easy to talk to. Whaddya say, you wanna go see a movie with me tomorrow?”

Keith paid for his food, looked up at Lance with his stupid smirk. “Sure,” he said, followed up with some finger guns.

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is rather autobiographical. The whole first conversation that Keith had with Lance happened word for word to me at a Target and I've used the self-checkout ever since. I currently have very little food in my fridge becuase I just don't want to interact with people today. And, even though my sister agreed to go with me, I skipped out on getting a haircut the other day, because again, I'd have to talk to people. I'm fine with people I know, though, I constantly worry about what other people must be thinking of me.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for things getting a bit OOC but I decided to dump all my anxieties on Keith.
> 
> Lance/Keith if you squint... to be honest this was gonna be a gen fic but toward the end the two really seemed like they were headed toward pre-slash to me.


End file.
